Why'd you go to Cornell...were you too "regular" to get into a real Ivy?

well, aren't you hilarious.

contrary from what people here seem to think, people who go to ivy league schools don't generally think of themselves as any better than other people. cornell was cheaper for me than columbia as well, and money was certainly a concern for my family and me.

I got a 162 and I'm not complaining. It's the 87th percentile, so 87% of people who took the test on that day would think I was an a-hole for complaining. That's a pretty big percentage. It's a little above my school's average score, and the majority of people at my undergrad get into somewhere they wanted to go.

Maybe I'll get in somewhere. This board is bad for self-esteem, however. I go on here and I'm ready to just give up and get a job at McDonald's forever.

The problem I have with the OP is not that he's priviledged or white (though I hope, Towlie, you realize these aren't the same thing), but that he's wrong. Sorry, buddy; Yale isn't that hard. I know half a dozen people who went there, including a guy I dated long-distance for two years during undergrad. He was a biochem major who graduated with a 3.8; I tutored him by phone based solely on the information I gleaned from my paltry third tier toilet education.

The difference between Ivy Leagues and other schools is that at Ivy Leagues, you can expect some of the people around you to have some idea what's going on. It doesn't really MATTER that anyone does, though. In the experience of dozens of people I know throughout the Ivies, grade inflation is so rampant at top institutions that you can coast through almost any major without learning anything more than someone at a state school, if you so choose (note the "CAN").

And one other thing: You (the OP) go on and on about how you took classes not for the rewards that would later be bestowed upon you, but for the "motherfucking love" (or some such nonsense) of learning. Good. Great. Faaantastic. So why don't you quit whining about how it was "all for nothing" and go back to masturbating to the image of your Yale diploma?

Side note: I know I should really try to cut down on my scathing references to masturbation ... but I can't help myself sometimes. This board is one giant mental wankathon.

I went to Cornell and I don't think there was any grade inflation. Cornell's Biology/Chemisty/Physics courses are designed at doing primarily one thing - "weeding out" those who don't belong in the program. I do feel, however, that I learned considerably more than people at other schools, and I found that graduate school was easier for me than it was for some other people.

I know that there exists grade inflation at Yale...I was a student advisor and one of my students who was doing very poorly came to me and told me that her best friend went to Yale and all he was getting was take-home tests...but please don't make the assumption that this kind of thing is what happens at every Ivy League school. I know people in engineering programs who worked their asses off, only to never see a GPA above a 3.0.

I am kind of in the same position as you, I'm switching careers from research in biology to law, so I kind of think I should be writing about my background and how it could contribute to my law career, but I'm getting the impression that maybe that's not a good route to take.

I was reading some books and it says to be funny and show your personality and everything, but I feel stupid completely ignoring the fact that I left a PhD program with a masters so that I could pursue science/technology law.

Cornell's average LSAT score for their undegrads is a 160. I remember seeing some Ivys that were even lower (Brown, I believe). Those scores aren't way over some other decent but non-Ivy schools. I wouldn't necessarily say that Ivy League educated people are way better at taking the LSATs, looking at those scores.

The average GPA for Cornell students applying to law school is a 3.28, and most of those people are history/political science majors.

So I don't really think the school matters, it's how well you do at the school...